Did anyone ever call 35mm film "full frame" before digital came along (except maybe in the context of those cameras that could shoot 2 or 4 pictures within a single 35mm frame)? I think you might be able to argue that anytime some refers to FF in this context they are talking digital.

No, quite the opposite. 35mm was traditionally called the miniature or leica format.

All those folk with 6D's and 5D3's thinking that 'full frame' is just the best thing ever... the medium format guys haven't even noticed you are in the room.

+1

They certainly could have called 35mm "full frame" before digital...because aps-c (advanced photo system-classic) was originally a film format, first produced in 1996. However, it didn't really catch on very well.

"The Advanced Photo System was an attempt of a major upgrade of photographic technology for amateurs, but was soon overtaken by the popularity of digital photography. Despite the added features, APS never really caught on with professional photographers because of the significantly smaller film area (56% of 135 film). Color slide film, popular with professional photographers, proved unpopular in APS format and was soon discontinued (although chromogenic black-and-white IX240 film continued to be produced). Color print film was normally available only in a limited selection of film speeds and color formats. These developments, combined with the fact that auto-loading 35mm cameras could be made almost as compact, as convenient, and as inexpensive as APS-format cameras, prevented APS from attaining greater popularity.[original research?]

APS cameras were mostly produced in compact fully automatic form for the consumer point and shoot camera market. However, within five years of APS' 1996 launch, the rapidly-falling prices and increasing quality of compact digital cameras had reached a critical point that saw them quickly adopted by the mainstream, and APS camera sales plummeted.

In January 2004, Kodak announced it was ceasing APS camera production.[2]

Both Fuji and Kodak, the last two manufacturers of APS film discontinued production in 2011.[3][4] However, as of January 2012, limited stocks are still available for purchase."

So i can say a FF sensor with 300 pixels and a FF sensor with 21 MegaPixels have the same resolution if its not about the pixels.The camera sensors are made out of pixels so how u wanna measure resolution in another way if the camera sees the world all in pixels and nothing else?!

Did anyone ever call 35mm film "full frame" before digital came along (except maybe in the context of those cameras that could shoot 2 or 4 pictures within a single 35mm frame)? I think you might be able to argue that anytime some refers to FF in this context they are talking digital.

No, quite the opposite. 35mm was traditionally called the miniature or leica format.

All those folk with 6D's and 5D3's thinking that 'full frame' is just the best thing ever... the medium format guys haven't even noticed you are in the room.

+1

They certainly could have called 35mm "full frame" before digital...because aps-c (advanced photo system-classic) was originally a film format, first produced in 1996. However, it didn't really catch on very well.

"The Advanced Photo System was an attempt of a major upgrade of photographic technology for amateurs, but was soon overtaken by the popularity of digital photography. Despite the added features, APS never really caught on with professional photographers because of the significantly smaller film area (56% of 135 film). Color slide film, popular with professional photographers, proved unpopular in APS format and was soon discontinued (although chromogenic black-and-white IX240 film continued to be produced). Color print film was normally available only in a limited selection of film speeds and color formats. These developments, combined with the fact that auto-loading 35mm cameras could be made almost as compact, as convenient, and as inexpensive as APS-format cameras, prevented APS from attaining greater popularity.[original research?]

APS cameras were mostly produced in compact fully automatic form for the consumer point and shoot camera market. However, within five years of APS' 1996 launch, the rapidly-falling prices and increasing quality of compact digital cameras had reached a critical point that saw them quickly adopted by the mainstream, and APS camera sales plummeted.

In January 2004, Kodak announced it was ceasing APS camera production.[2]

Both Fuji and Kodak, the last two manufacturers of APS film discontinued production in 2011.[3][4] However, as of January 2012, limited stocks are still available for purchase."

There were lots of film formats, popular sizes ranged from the infamous disk camera with what seemed like a microscopically small area of film, up to 8x10. 35 mm was probably the most popular size among "real cameras", but smaller formats like 110 are still in use today, as well as 220 (medium format) and the sheet films for what others considered to be real cameras, like the 4x5 and 8x10 formats.

We can't really compare film formats to digital formats because of the different pixel sizes used in digital. In film, at a particular ISO, for all practical purposes you had one resolution. Bigger sheet of film captures more detail, smaller one captures less. In the digital world, you range from pixel densities of around 20megapixels to around 5 gigapixels for the equivalent area of a FF sensor. In film the limit was how big you could make the camera, in digital it becomes a hard limit where if the pixel were any smaller it would be shorter than the waveform of light and become a mechanical filter.

Who knows what the future brings? Mechanical filters are very sharp, they are the standard way of filtering signals in satcom systems, perhaps one day they will replace the bayer filter... Nobody can predict the future with any kind of certainty, but one thing is true, film is not digital, the restrictions and bounds of one are not the restrictions and bounds of the other.

So i can say a FF sensor with 300 pixels and a FF sensor with 21 MegaPixels have the same resolution if its not about the pixels.The camera sensors are made out of pixels so how u wanna measure resolution in another way if the camera sees the world all in pixels and nothing else?!

I believe his point is MP alone does not provide a clear cut answer to how much detail is resolved by a camera. For instance, compare a picture taken with a perfect lens and a foveon sensor to a picture taken with that same lens and a bayer sensor with a heavy AA filter - even if they have the same MP, there will be a difference in what's resolved. Also, how about a 36MP D800 with a Nikon 500/4 compared to lowly 22MP 5D3 and a Canon 500/4 - The Canon system resolves more detail despite a lower number of MP.

Obviously it'd take a phenomenally bad lens (or AF system) to equal the gap between a 21 million pixel sensor and a 300 pixel sensor. The number of MP a sensor has sets a ceiling on the resolving power of a camera system, but many other parts of the system can work against realising that theoretical maximum. Like anything, its all down to the weakest link in the chain.

But isn't the point of this thread really that APS-C has one foot out the door?

Reason's to keep crop sensors around:

...

EFS - Investment in lenses wouldn't migrate to FF

...

It's not just an investment in EF-S lenses that won't migrate. While my EF lenses will work on both crop and ff bodies, effectively they will be different lenses. In actual use, migration doesn't have to just mean that the lenses can be mounted on both body types.

I use a 70-200/2.8 all the time. The focal length range works very well for me with a crop body. That lens will not be the same if I switch to FF. In this sense, it will not migrate. If I want the same range and aperture, I would need to buy a new lens.

Yes, I can always crop the images in post. But that doesn't change the fact that what I see through the viewfinder will be significantly different and will change the way I shoot. It will also complicate my workflow.

We can't really compare film formats to digital formats because of the different pixel sizes used in digital. In film, at a particular ISO, for all practical purposes you had one resolution. Bigger sheet of film captures more detail, smaller one captures less. In the digital world, you range from pixel densities of around 20megapixels to around 5 gigapixels for the equivalent area of a FF sensor. In film the limit was how big you could make the camera, in digital it becomes a hard limit where if the pixel were any smaller it would be shorter than the waveform of light and become a mechanical filter.

I am not sure what your point is. Since film of the same ISO was made more or less of the same material, with similar grain structure, this is in a way equivalent to a fixed pixel size. This degrades the resolution of the media proportionally to the crop factor. With digital, pixels can actually be smaller, and this is an advantage. We are still far from wavelength sized pixels, and film has no chance to get anywhere close anyway.

Even if you think of film as some perfect analogous sensor, detail smaller than wavelength does not exist anyway in the projected image, and then there is the photon nature of light, and all that.

It's not just an investment in EF-S lenses that won't migrate. While my EF lenses will work on both crop and ff bodies, effectively they will be different lenses. In actual use, migration doesn't have to just mean that the lenses can be mounted on both body types.

I use a 70-200/2.8 all the time. The focal length range works very well for me with a crop body. That lens will not be the same if I switch to FF. In this sense, it will not migrate. If I want the same range and aperture, I would need to buy a new lens.

Yes, I can always crop the images in post. But that doesn't change the fact that what I see through the viewfinder will be significantly different and will change the way I shoot. It will also complicate my workflow.

Agreed - lenses behave differently on the different bodies. Interestingly, I had the opposite experience. I got the 70-200/2.8L IS II when I had the 7D, and I found the focal length very awkward for me - too long indoors, not long enough when I needed reach outdoors (I have the 100-400, as well). After getting the 5DII, the 70-200/2.8 rapidly became my second most-used lens.

At least in your case, starting from the 70-200/2.8 on APS-C, the FF equivalent is 112-320mm f/4.5 so you could get pretty close with the 70-300L, and have better overall IQ than on the APS-C.

It's not just an investment in EF-S lenses that won't migrate. While my EF lenses will work on both crop and ff bodies, effectively they will be different lenses. In actual use, migration doesn't have to just mean that the lenses can be mounted on both body types.

I use a 70-200/2.8 all the time. The focal length range works very well for me with a crop body. That lens will not be the same if I switch to FF. In this sense, it will not migrate. If I want the same range and aperture, I would need to buy a new lens.

Yes, I can always crop the images in post. But that doesn't change the fact that what I see through the viewfinder will be significantly different and will change the way I shoot. It will also complicate my workflow.

Agreed - lenses behave differently on the different bodies. Interestingly, I had the opposite experience. I got the 70-200/2.8L IS II when I had the 7D, and I found the focal length very awkward for me - too long indoors, not long enough when I needed reach outdoors (I have the 100-400, as well). After getting the 5DII, the 70-200/2.8 rapidly became my second most-used lens.

At least in your case, starting from the 70-200/2.8 on APS-C, the FF equivalent is 112-320mm f/4.5 so you could get pretty close with the 70-300L, and have better overall IQ than on the APS-C.

It's not what most people would consider typical, but the 70-200/2.8 is my go-to zoo lens. Just about everyone else seems to think that the 100-400 is the "zoo lens." (I don't have a 100-400, by the way.) I'm usually also carrying a 300/4 and 1.4 teleconverter so I do have longer focal lengths covered.

Going to ff and a 70-300L, I'd have to weigh the benefits of higher ISO against losing the f/2.8.

I like the 70-200 for indoor portraits, but they're not "normal" portraits. Here's an example of a typical indoor shot that I like using the 70-200 on a crop body for. Again, it's not the greatest shot in the world but it's what I have handy.

Going to ff and a 70-300L, I'd have to weigh the benefits of higher ISO against losing the f/2.8.

You're not really losing f/2.8. Keep in mind that for the same framing, an f/2.8 lens on APS-C is giving you the DoF of an f/4.5 lens on FF, and you have >1.3-stops better ISO performance so you can maintain the shutter speed that you need.

Going to ff and a 70-300L, I'd have to weigh the benefits of higher ISO against losing the f/2.8.

You're not really losing f/2.8. Keep in mind that for the same framing, an f/2.8 lens on APS-C is giving you the DoF of an f/4.5 lens on FF, and you have >1.3-stops better ISO performance so you can maintain the shutter speed that you need.

DOF isn't everything. In fact, in a lot of cases it's less important to me than light gathering is. While the higher ISO would allow me to shoot with a smaller aperture, I'd really like to take advantage of it to increase shutter speed instead.

And I lose the benefit of using an f/2.8 lens with af sensors that like them.

But I'd rather not get into another discussion of equivalent lenses.

As always, different people have different requirements and different goals.

[Edit below]What I really should have said was the buying a 70-300L is not quite the same as migrating the 70-200/2.8 from crop to ff. And this part of the thread was originally talking about migrating lenses from crop to ff.

DOF isn't everything. In fact, in a lot of cases it's less important to me than light gathering is.

You have the same DOF with the same light gathering, regardless of the sensor format.

The 70-300L at the long end is f/5.6, not f/4.5. Light gathering is actually less, by about 2/3 stops at 300mm (but there is more light at 70mm). But you are getting better resolution, which more or less compensates for the 2/3 stop difference at the top end, with some NR.